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Word Gems 

exploring self-realization, sacred personhood, and full humanity

Soulmate, Myself:
Omega Point

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Elenchus. The author invited me to choose a topic, and I’m thinking of something from Aristotle, his discussion of things “natural”; particularly, the “natural union of male and female.”

Kairissi. Does this imply that male and female might enter union unnaturally?

E. We’ll need to look at the details, but there’s an important point here to help us define Omega Point.

K. I haven’t liked the teachings of Aristotle very much because he believed that some people are born to be masters and some to be slaves.

E. He was dead wrong about that, of course. We know from the afterlife testimonies that everyone, absolutely everyone, has an unlimited human potential.

K. I’ve always liked what Father Benson said about this, that there’s “no discoverable upper limit” to what we can become.

E. Our sacred “made in the image” capacities are awesome. But let’s allow Aristotle to speak from his own perspective as he does get many things right. In his book Politics he discusses the origin and nature of civil government. We’re not going to focus on the development of the political state, but only insofar as it impinges on the topic of marriage. Aristotle says that the state is a “natural” outgrowth of the family.

K. What does he mean by “natural” in this context?

E. His definition of “natural” has some merit, and we’ll need to investigate. First, he says, the way to discern the purpose of anything is to look at its beginnings:

"He who thus considers things in their first growth and origin, whether a state or anything else, will obtain the clearest view of them."

K. He’s giving us his general method of coming to know the essence of anything: it’s by searching out “things in their first growth and origin.”

E. In this investigation, he muses upon what “must” have happened in primordial times, causing people to come together to form society:

"In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue…"

K. He’s saying that the origin of civil government, the state, is founded upon a compulsion of male and female to procreate.

E. This, Aristotle suggests, becomes a “union of those who cannot exist without each other.”

K. Libidinous drive, he says, is the root origin of the state. What do you think about this assessment?

E. Consider the ancient world. Much of it was run by local patriarchal chieftains.

K. Which means that the “family” was an earliest expression of civil government. And these “families” would be run by patriarchs who often had many wives; wives as pleasure-sources.

E. And so, in order to protect his goods and capital, his sources of pleasure, the patriarch would institute various laws to manage his clan-based world. This is the milieu and spirit of what came to be known as “The Ten Commandments.” The author discussed this at length in another writing.

K. People want to be happy. And they arrange their lives to achieve happiness.

E. Aristotle says the same thing. In his Nicomachean Ethics, coming right before Politics, he makes the claim that everything people do is for the acquisition of happiness. Therefore, we can understand that when the patriarchal chieftain creates his rules to protect his family-empire, or a collection of families in a village, this would become the early stirrings of civil government.

K. He creates family and then civil government to protect his sources of happiness.

E. I think there’s some merit to this chain of thought. Now notice what he says right after “that the race may continue”:

"In the first place there must be a union of those who cannot exist without each other; namely, of male and female, that the race may continue, and this is a union which is formed, not of deliberate purpose, but because, in common with other animals and with plants, mankind have a natural desire to leave behind them an image of themselves…"

K. He draws distinction between “deliberate purpose” and “natural desire.”

E. Let’s think of a good example. A parent says to a child, “You can have ice-cream for dessert when you finish eating your broccoli.”

K. Eating the broccoli would happen with “deliberate purpose,” but the ice-cream goes down easy, that’s “natural desire.”

E. I think we see the difference.

K. And, of course, men and women come together with “natural desire.”

E. It’s hard to keep them apart. No “deliberate purpose” required. Here are Aristotle’s further comments:

"Therefore, if the earlier forms of society are natural, so is the state, for it is the end of them, and the nature of a thing is its end. For what each thing is when fully developed, we call its nature, whether we are speaking of a man, a horse, or a family."

K. He believes that the state is a natural aspect of society because it stems from the family, which is based upon natural desire.

E. I’m tempted to add that his view of the state is an idealized one. Today, with political Dear Leaders running amok, trying to defraud the public of personal liberties, the purpose of the state-as-servant is turned on its head. But let’s not get into that right now but allow Aristotle’s ideal view.

K. (sighing) Mmm...

E. He brings up a very interesting way of looking at the term “natural.” He says that we can know the nature of a thing by looking at its final form.

K. In other words, we can know the purpose of something by studying its mature expression.

E. For example, mature sheep dogs exhibit certain proclivities to gather and herd sheep. It’s bred into them. And when they're puppies, we see them at play, chasing something as if to “herd” it.

K. (small smile) I've seen that. Their play signals what they are to become.

E. Well, the overall purpose of this discussion is to arrive at a clearer vision of Omega Point. That’s where we’re all headed, where our evolution is pointing us.

K. And I’m suddenly seeing that we’ll never get there just by huffing-and-puffing with “deliberate purpose.”

E. I think you’re right. Only “natural desire” will take us to where we need to go.

K. What does all this mean, Elenchus?

E. It’s difficult to offer a quick answer. But let’s talk a little more about this. Aristotle said that natural desire brings together male and female.

K. That’s true as far as it goes, but we all know that the procreative urge, the thrill of sexual union, is not enough to keep couples together.

E. You bring up a very important point because there’re lots of people even on the other side who do not believe that romance and marriage have any lasting value. They see sexual union as something to “grow out of,” and that, when we’re fully mature spirit beings, we’ll put away all that “pleasure of the body” stuff.

K. The author’s article on “the 500 tape-recorded messages from the other side” discusses this issue in some detail, and we’ll direct our readers to that writing.

E. Omega-Point love and marriage does not dismiss bodily love, but it includes so much more.

K. This would mean that “natural” has an expanded meaning when it comes to Omega-Point romance.

E. We need to look at the end result, the mature form, of Omega-Point marriage to determine its purpose and its “nature.”

K. Of course, we know something about this, as we often talk about it. The spiritual purpose of marriage, the real reason why Girl and Boy need to be together, is to help each other evolve and grow into their fullest “made in the image” expressions of Mother-Father God.

E. And as our “eyes open” to cosmic destiny, we find ourselves compelled to find our true mates, the Sacred Beloved, in order to become who we were meant to become. It's "what we stay alive for."

K. And this compulsion to fulfill one’s destiny of emulating Mother-Father God, is more insistent than that of mere bodily union; with the former's satisfaction and completion also more pleasurable.

E. Both of these reasons for coming together are “natural desires” – but one is permanent and lasting while the other is very fleeting.

K. Elenchus, it seems that the huffing-and-puffing “deliberate purpose” engenders a kind of artificial result -- artificial as opposed to natural. It’s strange because, while John and Mary come together as a result of natural libido, what they end up with is also something quite artificial.

E. And they soon realize this. They made something work that, in the loftier purposes of God, was never meant to work.

K. These are the "natural" unnatural unions that will not survive transition to Summerland; and many of them are also “dead on arrival” right here and now.

E. Krissi… I have a confession to make.

K. Yes?

E. I had a particular reason why I wanted to investigate the definition of “natural.” A long time ago, when we were apart, I received a message from a psychic-medium who told me that at a later stage of life we would meet in a “natural way.”

K. (silence)

E. She was relaying information from Spirit Guides, and so "they" were telling me this. However, I was offered no explanation as to the meaning of “natural way.” This bothered me. For many years, off and on, I’d labor over the puzzle of what meeting in a “natural way” could mean. I had many theories but nothing really seemed valid. But then finally, when I saw Aristotle’s writing, I knew right away what it meant.

K. (very softly) And what does it mean?

E. “Natural way” speaks to "those who cannot exist without each other"; it means that we would meet, we would find a way to come together, or even to communicate, when we could no longer tolerate, not for one more minute, being apart.

Editor's note: See more in this article.